In America, if you want to visit a
bookstore your choices are simplified to either a Barnes & Noble or
Borders. Wait, what? Borders is no longer a thing? Ok, so your choice is Barnes
& Noble. There you will find lots of information about the newest edition
of the Nook Tablet along with calendars, stationary, games, puzzles, coffee, muffins,
magazines, and DVDs. A trip to a Barnes & Noble ensures a shiny pamphlet
with lots of Nook related information, a coffee frapp with whipped cream, and a
Seinfeld version of the Clue board game. Maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll see
some books there too.
But in London,
for some crazy reason, the books are the primary focus of bookstores. And your
choices are not limited to one chain store. During my summer in London, I made
sure I visited every bookstore I saw. If I was with a group traveling somewhere and passed an interesting bookstore, I made a mental note
of its location and revisited it another time. There was the used bookstore on
Kensington Church Street on the walk to school, a few other shops in Notting
Hill, and perhaps most impressive, the block in Covent Gardens that had
four bookshops.
